They must find it difficult, those who have taken authority as the truth, rather than truth as the authority.

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

The Constitution Applies to Terrorists

You can't tell this to neocons, because they can't seem to wrap their heads around the process involved in determining exactly who or what constitutes a "terrorist". Sure, I suppose an actual "terrorist" is one of the lowest forms of humanity there is. But how do you get to that point, knowing for sure that the person you would deprive of all human rights is actually, in fact, a "terrorist"?

In Neoconland, the only process necessary is the word of someone - anyone - of any kind of authority. In fact, let me back up, because most of the "terrorists" in Guantanamo aren't even there on the say-so of anyone of authority; they are there simply on the say-so of random people looking for a reward - most of them were not detained on any battlefield.

And it is completely lost on these fools that new laws already enacted and in the works strip even Americans of their citizenship and thus their constitutional liberties. All the government has to do is say you're a "terrorist" and *POOF* you become, essentially, an Orwellian-esque non-person. And I suppose I could get some neocons to express concern since currently that power rests in their hands of a "liberal/democrat" administration, but it wouldn't give them a moment's pause that the initial power now in Obama's hands was created by Bush. Nor does it concern them that the Enemy Belligerent, Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act is the brainchild of neocon heroes John McCain and Joe Lieberman.

Yes, you read that right. The Constitution applies to terrorists. It also applies to stay-at-home moms, illegal immigrants, truck drivers, anti-government radicals, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Put differently, the Constitution does not apply only to citizens of the United States. It seems that protectionist collectivists treat this document like a two-year-old treats his favorite toy – unwilling to share, and incorrectly believing that it is his and his alone. This fallacy has become so propagated throughout the country's general political mindset that a barbaric jingoism has resulted, leading people to automatically support the denial of constitutional protections of freedom for anybody who is a "terrorist."

But who is a terrorist?

The picture that first comes to mind is the "insurgent" fighting against our military in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the other countries of the Middle East in which our military is increasingly becoming engaged. Some examples of such "terrorists" might be: the vengeful man whose innocent brother was killed by an unmanned drone over the border of Pakistan; the adrenaline-fueled teenager taking on the militarized Goliath occupying his hometown; the man in the wrong place at the wrong time, picked up by a bounty hunter and sold to the American government with a fictional story created about his involvement in terrorist activities; and the list could continue, portraying stories far different than the standard "radical jihadist" that dominates our media's narrative.

Things hit closer to home when the suspected terrorists have white skin. Take, for example, the Missouri Information Analysis Center report which labeled as terrorists supporters of Ron Paul, Chuck Baldwin, Bob Barr, and anybody sporting paraphernalia associated with the Constitution Party, Campaign for Liberty, or the Libertarian Party.